Resveratrol in red wine shows promise in first human study

A compound in red wine suspected of offering a host of health benefits has for the first time shown promise in a study testing the compound in people, researchers reported Tuesday.

The small but intensive study involving 11 obese but healthy men found that taking a relatively low dose of resveratrol daily for a month produced a variety of fundamental beneficial effects on their metabolism.

“We are very excited,” said Patrick Schrauwen of Maastricht University in The Netherlands, whose research was posted online by the journal Cell Metabolism. “We found a lot of effects that all point in the same direction of better metabolic health.”